Despite letting what looked like a near victory Saturday night at home slip away with two minutes left in regulation, Chivas USA defender Mario de Luna remained positive with the fact that the team was able to break out of their losing streak and came away with a much needed point. Since the arrival of Head Coach Jose Luis Real, the Red-and-White formation and tactics have been remodeled. De Luna, who played for Real with Chivas de Guadalajara after coming up through Chivas’ celebrated Youth Academy, said after Saturday’s 1-1 draw against the New England Revolution that the team has, without question, shown improvement.

“We’ve worked very well the last three weeks that [Real] has been here,” said De Luna. “So we’re seeing the good results of that work and performance. We have possessed the ball well and little by little we’ll keep seeing the positive results. We’re mad that we had the three points, it’s painful. But we know that with the team we have and the coaching staff along with the institution that the results are going to come.”

The Red-and-White have shown immediate improvement under Real’s new system, and the defender has all the confidence in “El Güero’s” leadership and tutelage. The Goats have been under the new shepherd’s guidance for three matches now and the Guadalajara-born manager recorded his first League point Saturday. While together in Guadalajara, the duo was part of the squad that set a club record with eight consecutive wins to start a season and reached the prestigious Copa Libertadores Final. With the Rojiblancos’ performance Saturday, De Luna sees that the team is starting to understand and implement Real’s system and they will only get better.

“We played very well in the first half,” added De Luna. “We were in the attacking third a lot; we possessed the ball well and created a lot of chances at goal. In the second half the team sat back a bit when the opponent was in search of the equalizer. We shouldn’t sit back; we needed to do the same as we did in the first half. Unfortunately we didn’t come away with what we wanted, which was three points and a victory that was very important after many losses. What we can salvage from this game is that we added a point and broke out of the slump.”

The Goats will now need to build on the result as they embark on their longest road trip of the season this week. The three-game road trip, which will be played in a span of nine days, will kick off with a July 4 match at FC Dallas and will conclude with an East Coast swing to ImpactMontreal and Philadelphia Union.